5 Tips for Writing Great Quiz Questions (+70 Sample Trivia Questions)

You can’t make a great cake with poor ingredients. The right amount of milk, eggs, flour, baking powder, sugar salt – individually they don’t exactly taste great, but together they make for a finger-licking combination. When it comes to quizzes, think of quiz questions as your cake ingredients.

Anyone can come up with quiz questions, but it takes lots of trial and error, practice and skill to come up with engaging questions that make people complete your quiz. And of course, an easy-to-use quiz maker.

We eliminated the guesswork from the process, and we’re here with a mouth-watering cake recipe. Here is how to create quiz questions that absolutely captivate and thrill your audience.

5 Tips for Writing Amazing Quiz Questions

Number of quiz questions

Creating a perfect quiz is a matter of trial and error and lots of split testing.

One of the factors that can make or break your quiz’ success is how many questions there are. Quizzes are inherently viral in nature and they’re very fun to do. However, the average quiz taker won’t have more than a few minutes to complete a quiz – so keep this in mind.

If you’re creating a trivia quiz (a pub quiz, for example), you need to make sure there’s at least enough questions to allow for some kind of ranking or meaningful score-based results. That being said, the minimum number of questions I’d recommend is 10 but it could easily go up to 20.

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On the other hand, if you’re writing quiz questions aimed at generating leads for your business, be careful as too many quiz questions can make the takers give up before the quiz is even done. Still, if there’s not enough questions (e.g. 3-5), the takers will feel like the quiz is too superficial to give meaningful outcomes. Consequently, they won’t be too willing to provide their email address once they’re finished with the questions.

However, lots of questions isn’t always a bad thing – you’re trading the number of leads for quality. Someone who just completed a 20-question quiz on sleep quality is much more interested in finding out how to tackle sleep deprivation than someone who gave up at question 4.

Data from our own research suggests that you should aim for at least 8-10 questions. In fact, 70% of the quizzes in our best performing list had at least 10 questions. With his Health Score quiz, Yuri Elkaim generated more than 10,000 leads in two months – the quiz had 20 questions.

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Martin Clinics’ Thyroid Quiz has had over 150,000 views total, with more than 50% people taking their quiz – which had 13 questions.

Want a cool tip? You can let your takers know how many questions there are in advance, in the very title of the quiz.

For example, Pick Seven Junk Foods And We’ll Tell You What % Trash You Are is one of the best performing Buzzfeed quizzes of all time. You immediately know that there’s seven questions and you won’t waste too much of your time doing the quiz.

Question content

This one is a no-brainer, but keep your questions on topic. Asking takers about their favorite breakfast food in a quiz titled Which Friends Character are You is not only bizarre, it’s also deceiving the quiz taker. Make sure they get exactly what you promise them once they opt to take your quiz.

Use humor. Whenever possible, try to make your questions witty and humorous. It may sound simple, but this can be a pretty tall order depending on the type of quiz you’re creating.

For example, many of our case studies include medical professionals – it can be very difficult to take a humorous approach to something like respiratory diseases. However, you can always find ways to be funny and clever with your quiz questions.

Why is humor good as a quiz question element? First, it engages your participants and makes them complete the quiz.

Second, it shows that you have a personality and that you and your company have a unique brand voice. A little bit of humor can go a long way in building engagement and trust.

Make your questions interesting. Here are two examples for you to consider:

What’s the one item you cannot go without every day?

If you were on a stranded island, which of these would you take?

I don’t know about you, but I’d be more interested in replying to the second one. The more unusual, unexpected and remarkable your questions are, the more engaging they will be for the quiz takers.

Don’t try to be smart. Of course, we don’t mean this in the traditional way. If you form your questions so that you’re trying to trick your audience, you’re playing a losing game.

The participants will spend time racking their brains instead of enjoying your quiz, and chances of them dropping out before the quiz ends increase significantly.

Great quiz questions hit the sweet spot where they’re neither too hard or too easy. This is extremely important in knowledge-based trivia quizzes. And can be completely different when it comes to survey questions.

Spoiler alert: Keep scrolling and you will find 70 sample general-knowledge questions you can use in your own trivia quizzes right now.

Question length

There’s one thing shared by the majority of high-performing quizzes created by LeadQuizzes users. The questions (and answers) are fairly short. Take a look at this example from a Thyroid Disease Quiz available as a LeadQuizzes’ template:

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The question has only six words and all of the answers have just a single word. Short questions are practical because it only takes a matter of seconds to go over them.

Your takers are bombarded with content all day long and if you can save them time on reading your quiz questions – they’ll appreciate it.

How do you go about making your questions shorter? There’s a hint that you can take from the image above. Instead of a quiz question, create a statement, with answers such as Rarely, Sometimes, Never, Always, Frequently, etc. Or you can keep it simple and adjust your question to the good old True/False answer pair.

Another great insight from our best performing quizzes is to have identical answers to all quiz questions, as in the example above. There are multiple advantages to this approach.

First, you don’t have to spend a lot of time thinking about different answers.

Second, this will create a momentum for the takers and they’ll know what to expect after a couple questions – they’ll finish the quiz more quickly. Finally, you will have an easier time formulating the questions themselves.

Type of language

The kind of language you use for your quiz questions will depend on several factors. Who is your target audience? How much do you know about them, and how much do they know about the quiz subject matter? What effect are you trying to produce?

Ultimately, there’s one piece of advice all quiz creators should stick to – spare your words. Whether you call it verbosity or wordiness, the symptoms are the same. Don’t use overly complicated terms that your audience won’t be able to understand.

Remember – the goal is to make the takers complete your quiz, not for them to think how smart you are. As a quiz creator, you’re also in the shoes of a copywriter. And good writers know that simplicity sells.

Take a look at this example from this Skin Care quiz.

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The language is simple and easy to understand, even if you’re not a native English speaker. All of the quiz questions in this example contain common, everyday terms.

And if you’re wondering if it works – it does, very well. This particular quiz generated 20,258 leads in just two months.

On the other end of the spectrum, don’t dumb your language down to the point where you’re using layman terms. However, don’t be afraid to use jargon and slang sometimes, if it is in line with your brand voice and the purpose of the quiz.

A trivia quiz will be much different in language from a quiz on the type of supplements you should be taking to increase your muscle mass – you will have much more freedom of expression.

Once more, the only way to find out what works is to split test and see what the quiz takers and their behavior are telling you.

Quiz questions with image answers

A picture is worth a thousand words. In the case of quizzes, there won’t be anything close to a thousand words, but images can make a huge difference to your quiz.

The facts are there: 65% of people are visual learners and over 90% of information coming to the brain is visual. On top of that, presentations with visual elements are 43% more persuasive.

Luckily, a quiz builder like LeadQuizzes allows you to insert image answers to your quiz questions.

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Don’t just take our word for it, see what the best quiz creators are doing. The majority of Buzzfeed’s best-performing quizzes have one common trait – they include image answers to their quiz questions.

The ability to use image answers opens up a world of possibilities for your quiz questions. You can avoid having a lengthy question by presenting the situation in the answer. Moreover, if you can’t think of a way to make your question humorous, you can always attach a funny pic as an answer.

To help you come up with a great general knowledge quiz, we have compiled a selection of 70 amazing trivia quiz questions you can find below.

For other types of quizzes, check out our selection of 44 ready-made quiz templates that include pre-written questions and answers.

70 Quiz Questions to use in Your Own Trivia Quiz

1. There is a village in France near the Somme which has a one-letter name. Which letter is it?

2. How many bones does an adult human have?

3. Which city has sporting teams named the Lions, Tigers and Red Wings?

4. Which sea creature has three hearts?

5. What is the Greek word for fire?

6. The principle telling us that the simplest explanation is more likely the correct one is known as Occam’s what?

7. What is the highest number used in a Sudoku puzzle?

8. In which US state did the Battle of Little Big Horn take place?

9. Which famous phrase stems from the doomed troops on board the sinking ship HMS Birkenhead?

10. What does GMO stand for?

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11. The ghost town Pripyat is found in which country?

12. Who sang about being an eggman and a walrus?

13. How many dots are used in each letter in the Braille system?

14. Mariposa, Motyl, Farfalla, Schmetterlinge, Borboleta, Papillon, and Sommerfugl are all European words for what?

15. What is one quarter of 1,000?

16. Which Cameroonian footballer is the only African to have played in four FIFA World Cups?

17. What is the common name for Japanese horseradish?

18. What is entomophobia?

19. What is a ‘kylie’ in Australia?

20. When did the French Revolution end?

21. Which Apollo 11 astronaut did not set foot on the moon?

22. The Daiquiri cocktail was named after a village on which island country?

23. In film. who has played characters named John Smith, Aldo Raine, Tyler Durden and Rusty Ryan?

24. In Greek Mythology, after being spurned by Narcissus, which heart-broken nymph pined away until only her voice remained?

25. Name the doctor played by Tom Baker, William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton, among others.

26. Which hero’s arch-enemy is Dr. Robotnik?

27. What is the well-known Arabic word for ‘The Island’?

28. Who wrote the poem Paradise Lost?

29. Duffel bags and Duffel coats. In which EU country is the town Duffel located?

30. Alec Guinness, Robert Carlyle, Anthony Hopkins, and Ian McKellen have all played which 20th-century historical figure?

31. A bicycle manufacturer, a US state capital and a county in West Virginia are all named after which Englishman?

32. The unrest in which Asian country in 2007 was called ‘The Safran Revolution’?

33. With 202,080 km, which country has the longest coastline in the world?

34. In which country was Freddie Mercury, the frontman of Queen, born?

35. Which national team introduced ‘Total Football’ at the 1974 FIFA World Cup in Germany?

36. What is the largest peninsula in the world?

37. On which day of the week did Christopher Columbus discover Dominica?

38. What is the largest inland lake in South America?

39. The name for which island country means ‘the old’ in Spanish?

40. What is the name of the radiation belt that surrounds the Earth?

41. Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha, is located in which country?

42. Ackees, sapotas, and soursops are all examples of what?

43. What was the last black and white film to win an Oscar for Best Picture?

44. What did Chuck Yeager break on 14 October 1947?

45. What is the culinary term for cutting food into long thin strips?

46. What nickname was the horribly disfigured John Merrick given?

47. What is a serpent?

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48. What do both Vito and Michael Corleone have in their hands moments before they die?

49. What is the national flower of India?

50. Which city is home to Michelangelo’s masterpiece ‘David’?

51. Which writer was responsible for ‘The Three Laws of Robotics’?

52. What was the name of the official residence of Russian monarchs between 1732 and 1917? (the English name)

53. Which American singer-songwriter played Dracula’s servant Renfield in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 film Bram Stocker’s Dracula?

54. The following lines are from which popular 1989 Hollywood film?

“Is this heaven?” “No, it’s Iowa.”

55. Arctic King, Saladin, and Tom Thumb are which types of vegetable?

56. The Dutch woman Margaretha Zelle was better known as what?

57. Ka-Bar, Dirk, Puukko and Khukuri are all examples of what?

58. In which famous film does Dave ‘kill’ Hal?

59. In the US TV comedy show Everybody Loves Raymond, what is Raymond’s brother’s first name?

60. Jimmy Donal Wales is best known as being the co-founder and promoter of which internet presence?

61. Which French impressionist is famous for his paintings of ballet subjects?

62. Which actor, famous for playing the bad guy in many films, played Lee Harvey Oswald in the film JFK?

63. The name for which indispensable part of the Indian cuisine means “the fragrant one”?

64. Which classic car model was used as the time machine in the Back to the Future movies?

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65. Who invented jeans?

66. Which European capital city was built on 14 islands?

67. Which American rock star had a role in the 2000 film ‘U-571’?

68. What does ‘E’ represent in E = MC2?

69. Steven Spielberg was one of the co-founders of which movie studio?

70. Amongst the tribesmen he worked with, he was known as ‘El Aurens’. We know him better as what?

Answers

1. Y

2. Two hundred and six

3. Detroit

4. Octopus

5. Pyro

6. Razor

7. 9

8. Montana

9. “Women and children first”

10. Genetically Modified Organism

11. Ukraine

12. The Beatles

13. 6

14. Butterfly

15. 250

16. Rigobert Song

17. Wasabi

18. An irrational fear of insects.

19. A boomerang that doesn’t come back

20. 1799

21. Michael Collins

22. Cuba

23. Brad Pitt

24. Echo

25. Dr Who.

26. Sonic the Hedgehog

27. Al Jazeera

28. John Milton

29. Belgium

30. Adolf Hitler

31. Sir Walter Raleigh

32. Myanmar (Burma)

33. Canada

34. Zanzibar

35. Holland

36. Arabian Peninsula

37. Sunday

38. Lake Titicaca

39. Antigua

40. Van Allen Belt

41. Nepal

42. Fruit

43. The Artist

44. The sound barrier

45. Julienne

46. The Elephant Man

47. Snake

48. An orange

49. Lotus

50. Florence

51. Isaac Asimov

52. The Winter Palace

53. Tom Waits

54. Field of Dreams

55. Lettuce

56. Mata Hari

57. Knives

58. 2001 A Space Odyssey

59. Robert

60. Wikipedia

61. Edgar Degas

62. Gary Oldman

63. Basmati

64. DeLorean

65. Levi Strauss

66. Stockholm

67. Jon Bon Jovi

68. Energy

69. Dreamworks

70. T. E. Lawrence or ‘Lawrence of Arabia’

Key takeaways

Creating your perfect quiz questions isn’t rocket science – just a matter of a lot of thinking and A/B split testing to find out what works well for your specific case. Here’s a quick summary:

  • Keep the questions short and simple
  • Use everyday language
  • Keep your questions humorous and unexpected, but also on topic
  • Use our sample quiz questions given above to launch your next trivia today
  • Use our 44 quiz templates to launch any kind of a quiz within minutes

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If you’re looking for inspiration on how to use quizzes to generate leads, make sure to check out our case studies!

Try out quizzes for free

If you’ve applied all of our tips, your quiz questions will be engaging, to the point, and compelling enough to get people to complete your quizzes and opt in with their emails.

Did you know that quizzes can be much more than a fun way to pass the time? At LeadQuizzes, we’ve created a tool that lets you use quizzes to easily generate leads for your business. And it works.

Just ask one of our 7,500 users who generated over 3 million leads! Our quiz builder is super easy to use and provides you with all the necessary quiz creation tools, including ways to create questions, outcomes, lead capture forms and more. Once you have a finished quiz, all you have to do is sit back and watch the leads roll in.